80 percent of the most popular health applications available on Android do not comply with standards intended to prevent the misuse and dissemination of user data. This is the finding of a European study started in 2016 involving ...

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Orton are exploring the benefits and impacts of technology in motivating seniors to increase physical activity. This is being done in the new MoveRoll project, funded by the Academy ...

Older married women shoulder more housework than their husbands do even when neither of them are in the labor force—and health problems she may have don't change that arrangement unless they are significant.

More than 23.5 million Americans suffer from autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma and lupus, in which an overzealous immune response leads to pain, inflammation, skin disorders and other chronic health ...

Public health organizations have long warned about the devastating potential of superbugs—bacteria that are immune to any existing antibiotics. If left unchecked, by 2050 these microorganisms could kill 10 million people ...

As many as two-thirds of North American cats are obese, and just like in humans, obesity can shorten their lives and cause a long list of health issues including diabetes, osteoarthritis and cardiovascular problems. Yet, ...

The question of how mental health status affects decisions regarding retirement savings is becoming a pressing issue in the United States. Key factors contributing to this issue include the tenuous state of the Social Security ...

Health effects of tobacco

The health effects of tobacco are the circumstances, mechanisms, and factors of tobacco consumption on human health. Epidemiological research have been focused primarily on tobacco smoking, which has been studied more extensively than any other form of consumption.

Tobacco use leads most commonly to diseases affecting the heart and lungs, with smoking being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancer).

The World Health Organization estimate that tobacco caused 5.4 million deaths in 2004 and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century. Similarly, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes tobacco use as "the single most important preventable risk to human health in developed countries and an important cause of premature death worldwide."

Smoke contains several carcinogenic pyrolytic products that bind to DNA and cause many genetic mutations. There are over 19 known chemical carcinogens in cigarette smoke. In addition, tobacco and tobacco smoke contain 2 radioactive carcinogens. Tobacco also contains nicotine, which is a highly addictive psychoactive chemical. When tobacco is smoked, nicotine causes physical and psychological dependency. Tobacco use is a significant factor in miscarriages among pregnant smokers, it contributes to a number of other threats to the health of the fetus such as premature births and low birth weight and increases by 1,4 to 3 times the chance for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).[citation needed] The result of scientific studies done in neonatal rats seems to indicate that exposure to cigarette smoke in the womb may reduce the fetal brain's ability to recognize hypoxic conditions, thus increasing the chance of accidental asphyxiation. Incidence of impotence is approximately 85 percent higher in male smokers compared to non-smokers, and it is a key cause of erectile dysfunction (ED).